1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to visualization. More particularly, the present invention relates to a layout method and system in a display area for disconnected dynamic networks.
2. Description of Related Art
Network datasets, such as social networks, internet and financial networks etc. are widely available in many fields. As one of the effective techniques to demonstrate relationships in networks, graphs have been studied for a long time and many layout methods and useful interactive tools have been proposed to help users to find out interesting patterns in these network datasets. Recently, more and more attentions are moving into dynamic networks since many networks in real life change over time. Previous methods work well for static networks, but for dynamic networks, they fail to keep temporal coherence and cannot show stable transitions from frame to frame. Therefore, several approaches are designed for visualizing the updates of dynamic networks stably and smoothly by considering both the layout algorithms and the animation techniques.
For disconnected dynamic networks, one of the most popular networks, the visualization methods mentioned above cannot be directly adopted, since new challenges rose in which major challenges are as following. Firstly, it is quite difficult to lay out the disconnected components within the networks on the screen clearly and informatively when they are static, not to mention if they are dynamically changing; secondly, it is also very difficult to keep the changes of the multiple components shown smoothly and stably. If movements between the current location and the previous location are simply minimized, it may cause great overlap when some components are merged together in certain time frame.
There is need for a method and system to address the problems mentioned above.